


the less we say about it the better

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Insomnia, No Plot/Plotless, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 14:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This was weird. This wasveryweird and Steve considers that while standing in front of the glass doors holding shelves upon shelves of bottles and cans, all bright colors and plastic and metal and labels with exclamation points and fancy, in-your-face fonts. He wouldn’t say that they were hanging out. That implied that either of them were currently enjoying spending time in each other’s company. But if not that, then what was this? Just two people who hated each other and didn’t want to be alone for a little while on a Saturday night. Better than a stranger, Steve supposes, but this Billy—this one right here, the one who couldn’t breathe right and who’s hands shook all the time—might as well have been one.He certainlytalkedlike Billy. But everything else? Different.





	the less we say about it the better

**Author's Note:**

> Just what the world needs: another fic about Billy surviving and being a little messed up and also Steve is there and Robin is sort-of-there because boy oh boy I’ve found myself horribly attached to this Trio That’ll Never Be.
> 
> This is not the fic I anticipated I’d be writing after season 3. I had kind of hoped it’d be longer but also I wrote this while running on zero sleep so the fact this happened at all is a miracle. I do have an idea for a big ol’ Steve, Robin, and Billy fic brewing but who knows what’ll come of that.

It’s exactly 12:36AM on a Saturday night when Steve finds Billy Hargrove.

He wasn’t _looking_ for him because why would he? There wasn’t a _reason_ for him to, no matter what anyone else said ( _you shared a trauma_ , a voice he can’t pinpoint says, _that matters; you can’t avoid it forever_ and Steve wants to say: _watch me_ because he can’t say no to a challenge, even an unintentional one). But he found him anyway and Steve thinks it’s the universe pulling on his pigtails like they’re in elementary school except this painful tug didn’t mean ‘I like you’.

Steve wants to be able to say (in case someone asks him to tell this story later, which they wouldn’t but you know… just in case) that he couldn’t tell that it was him at first but the truth was that Steve could probably pick Billy out of a crowd of people from town because he doesn’t really look like everyone else and also, mostly, because of his stupid hair.

Billy’s walking down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and his leather jacket hung over his shoulders even though it’s a surprisingly warm evening considering that it’s the middle of September. His head is down like he’s watching his feet or just trying his best to avert his gaze from anyone who he might pass which is so unlike him that it would have literally tripped Steve up if he had been walking instead of driving—he and Robin had been hanging out at Steve’s house because his parents were away again and it’s always nicer to spend time with Robin just the two of them (he’s not embarrassed to be seen with her, not in the least, they go out all the time, but also they work well when it’s just _them_ and a television and snacks and _laughter_ ) but they’d run out of soda (Steve had meant to buy more yesterday but he forgot, as he always does) so he’d volunteered to go out and find _somewhere_ that could sell them drinks.

He knows there’s a 7-Eleven out there just past the main part of town and he had no idea if it was a 24/7 type of place or not but he was going to try. Worst case, there’s a burger joint even further out and he could just buy them some cups and worry about getting a six-pack in the morning. Daylight morning.

But then here was Billy, walking and walking and Steve is driving and it’s almost one in the morning and he knows why _he’s_ awake but it doesn’t explain why Billy is. Well. Stupid Steve, though, right? Everything that happened in the summer and Billy only just recently got out of the hospital, which he only knows because everybody around here are huge gossips and definitely not because Steve was keeping track of where Billy might or might not be. Case in point: he had no idea he’d be here.

It’d be easy to just keep the speed he’s currently going and drive right past him. It’d be easy and it’d make sense. Which is why Steve slows down. Of course. At first Billy shows no sign of being aware of his new companion but then Steve sees him glance towards the road, towards the car, and he grimaces and then turns away. Even in that split second and with a window between them, Steve can see that Billy looks terrible. He can’t possibly look worse than he did during Starcourt, when he was on the ground, saturated in blood, holes in— Steve feels a bile in his throat that he swallows back down. No matter what Hell they had put each other through (weighted heavily more so on Billy than on Steve), witnessing that was top ten on the ‘Worst Things I’ve Seen And Consequently Cannot Forget’ list Steve has, which shouldn’t even be a _top ten_ in the first place, that’s how fucked up his life has been in the past three years.

Terrible. Billy looks _terrible_ and once upon a time Steve would relish in it but right now it’s making him uncomfortable. Worried, too, which is _also_ making him a little troubled because Steve shouldn’t be worried about him. That’s not their relationship. He should drive away.

“Hey,” Steve says, rolling down the window. Billy doesn’t tell him to _fuck off_ or threaten him. He says nothing. “What’s up?” He mouths it again to himself because really? _What’s up_.

“Fuck off, Harrington.” Oh. There it is. A delayed reaction or he was hoping that ignoring him would be enough but Billy should know Steve better than that by now.

“You look… okay,” Steve lies and Billy actually snorts. They’re reaching the end of the block and it’s not until now that Steve realizes that this isn’t even Billy’s neighborhood. There aren’t any stores here because this is a suburb, it’s possible he was visiting someone but it wasn't likely. So conclusion: he walked here from his house which—if Steve can recall—is at least an hour away from where they are right now. Or more possibly. It’s not like he’s memorized the Hargrove-Mayfield address. 

“I know I look like shit,” Billy says, stopping on the corner. Surprising, truthfully, because Steve expected him to just keep going even though that might not have been where he wanted to go but maybe if he kept it up, Steve would get the message to _leave him alone_ eventually. He’s making it seem like it’s because they’re talking and he’s adjusting his boots but Steve can clearly see that Billy is actually out of breath. Certified Fighter and Jock Hargrove is out of breath from moving at a leisurely pace down a flat sidewalk. “You don’t have to BS me.”

He should just leave him there. Despite everything, it would be what he deserved.

The possession, the damage, the _sacrifice_ and all that fucking blood didn’t immediately cross out the fact that Billy did what he did and that between them has always been a lake of fire that neither of them were willing to cross—difficult, when the only option for the longest time was to swim through it and who, really, wanted to get burned that badly.

So yeah. Billy deserved to be left hurt and quietly gasping for air on a street corner.

“Do you—” Steve clutches both hands on the steering wheel, wrings his palms around it. He could drive away if Billy lashed out, he had the advantage here. “Do you need me to take you home?” Billy stares down at him for what feels like a long enough time that it almost seems as if he’s looking _through_ Steve, like he’s gone somewhere else and Steve feels a chill go up his spine, blames it on a sudden, non-existent chilly breeze that filtered into his vehicle. He knows that the likelihood of that _thing_ still being in there wearing Billy like a squishy meat suit was less than zero. He was _there_ when it was dropkicked. But still. Nobody could blame a guy for being anxious.

Billy blinks finally and, under this orange street light, the dark circles under his eyes are even more pronounced.

“No.” All of that for a single, two-letter, one syllable word.

“Okay. Well…” _I tried_ , Steve thinks. He eases off the brake, readies himself to hold down on the gas because alright, good talk, he’ll probably see him around one way or another some time but then he hears Billy say:

“Where’re you going?” It sounds like it physically pains him to say it and Steve can’t tell if it’s because he really is aching or because of who he's asking this particular question to. Steve could fib but what would be the point? What’s the use. Besides, there’s a part of him that kind of wants to see where this is leading. Robin could wait another twenty or thirty minutes. ( _Sure I could_ , he imagines her saying to him, _but it doesn’t mean I should._ )

“Soda hunting,” Steve says, keeps it simple. Billy doesn’t say anything else and it’s clear that he’s hoping Steve will do him the favor of filling in the blanks himself because god forbid Billy _asks_ for anything. God forbid he asks for help. Steve considers keeping his mouth firmly shut and _making him_ get there, wait him out and watch him until he couldn’t take it anymore but at this point Steve has realized that he’s been doing the opposite of everything his brain is telling him he _should_ be doing. “You wanna tag along?”

A heavy sigh. A glance down the road and a shrug of the shoulders and Steve hasn’t missed how the entire time he’s been there, Billy's hands have been hidden in his pockets. He sounds _put upon_ and Steve is seconds away from yelling _this was your idea, asshole_ but Billy talks instead.

“Sure.” Hands come out and, long finger visibly shaking, Billy walks around to the passenger-side, opens the door and slides into the seat. He leans an elbow on the thin ledge that the window provides, presses his arm against the glass, rests his head against that very same arm. His hands vibrate, never stopping, and Steve idly wonders if that’s a Just Right Now Thing or an All The Time Thing and if it was any of his business to ask. Billy probably wouldn’t tell him anyway. “Well it’s not out here in the fucking street,” Billy says.

Steve mutters under his breath but even _he_ isn’t sure what he says and then he pulls away from the curb and starts driving.

& & & &

It’s almost ten minutes in, passing by house after house, the grass between the beat-up dwellings with their peeling paint and badly patched roofs and rusty cars parked wherever they wanted like weeds grown from the bad soil getting longer and longer. Eventually, they’d reach the point where it was just trees, where _nobody_ lived (not anyone they would want to meet) and that’s the part Steve is dreading a little because there was a lot less light out there and he doesn’t like not knowing what might be lurking. Sure, it could be a deer or a raccoon but it could also be something much, much more awful.

His bat is in the trunk and he calculates how fast he could get to it if he needed to. (Not fast enough.)

“So what exactly—” Steve turns to glance at his new travelling companion because that’s what you do when you’re talking to someone, you make sure they know you're addressing them even if there's only two of you, and that's when he finds out that Billy is asleep. The son-of-a-bitch bummed a ride from him and then _fell asleep_. The obvious emotional choice here would be _annoyance_ but, honestly, he’s not sure how he feels about it; it’s rude, for sure, and the right thing to do here would be to jostle him awake and then pretend it was an accident or—if he was feeling particularly ‘I’d like to die tonight’—make it clear it had been done completely intentionally but he also remembers reading somewhere that a dog who's had a shitty go of things feeling comfortable enough to fall asleep around you meant they felt _safe_. Non-threatened.

And huh. _That_ was something. Maybe Steve is a little offended because that means Billy doesn’t think Steve could take him in a fight and maybe that was true once but also Steve took out a _Russian_ awhile ago in a one-on-one and there were people who could corroborate that. He has _references_.

“I could fight you,” Steve says quietly. He thinks that he hears Billy laugh just as quietly at that but it must have been the wind from his still-open window because there’s no way that noise would have been discernible enough amongst all the others so he probably imagined it. It’s what he _expected_ to hear so he heard it.

There aren’t any other cars out here and Steve could go faster if he wanted to but he doesn’t. His problems didn’t morph into a recklessness—they had turned into insomnia and migraines instead and, so far, he’d been lucky enough that they didn’t happen at the same time. Robin had her things, too. They all did because how in the world could you _not_. Billy apparently wasn’t coping either if the current state of him had anything to say about it. Steve didn’t need to be a professional anything to be able to see that.

The houses are gone and now it’s just trees and every single one is black, every single one looks like an arm reaching up to the sky even with the leaves hanging there, still like things get before a storm sometimes but that’s not going to happen; the sky is clear tonight, just like it had been last night and the night before that and he only knows because his sleep schedule is erratic enough that there’s at least a couple hours four or fives times a week where he’s wide awake and he just decides to sit outside listening to music on the Walkman Robin bought him until he’s worn out.

So okay. Fine. They've got thirty minutes until they reach the 7-Eleven. Steve can let him rest for thirty minutes.

& & & &

The place is like an oasis in the middle of a backwoods horror (neither of those things are really true but that’s certainly what it _feels_ like these days). Lights too bright both inside and out and thank god it’s open because the kid who runs the night shift at the burger joint creeps Steve the fuck out without even having to say anything; he’s all gangly limbs and pale skin and pitch black hair like an emaciated scarecrow came to life and then realized if he wanted to keep it up he needed to find a job. And. Well. Managers at an all-night food dive are willing to hire _anyone_ to stand around between the hours of midnight and 6AM.

There’s one guy behind the counter that Steve can see from where he’s parked between the building and the gas pumps but he’s round and balding and visibly hairy and Steve has a feeling that he could take him if he needed to. (Robin would laugh; _win one fisticuffs and suddenly you’re assessing every single person you come across_. But it was fine because he’d make fun of her for using the word ‘fisticuffs’ without a hint of irony.)

When Steve shuts off the engine (because he hadn’t, not yet, not before he’d gotten a handle on what they were dealing with here), he hears the buzzing of the lights, a _tap tap tap_ of moths hitting themselves against them— _let me in, let me in_. But that’s it. Buzzing. Tapping. He and Billy breathing.

He should have turned on the radio.

Instead of gently nudging him, offering a polite _wakey wakey_ , Steve exits the vehicle and slams his door shut with as much force as he can manage which drags the attention from the man behind the counter and scares the living daylights out of Billy. There’s a wild look in his eyes as he surveys his surroundings, a look that Steve recognizes instantly from when he sees it on himself whenever he startles awake thanks to a nightmare and manages to haul himself to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, catching his reflection in the mirror.

Something akin to regret clenches in his chest. His high school bully (and how insane was that, that _Steve_ of all people was picked on by a meat tenderizer with a temper) was sitting and sleeping right beside him and he’d allowed some sort of very him-like retribution to take control of the situation because true, yes, his high school bully is _right there_ but this was also his undoubtedly traumatized bully who, to be fair, hadn’t actually done much harassing in the past couple months.

To be fair.

Billy recovers pretty quickly or, at least, he fakes it extraordinarily well and then he’s climbing head-first out of the car, closing the door with a surprising amount of care and then there they are, just sort of standing there, Billy’s hands back in his pockets like he thinks Steve didn’t know, saving face maybe, and Steve with his arms at his sides and then crossed over his chest and then at his sides again. He fidgets with his keys. _Jingle jingle_.

“Sorry,” Steve hears himself say. And what’s _he_ apologizing for? The door probably. Or everything, even though none of it was his fault. But that’s what you say, right? When someone is going through a tough time. When they’re troubled. When they’re _grieving_ . ‘I’m sorry’. Billy furrows his eyebrows. A heavy leather jacket and a shirt actually buttoned up a decent amount of buttons. _Covering up_. Scars, most likely. He looks like he’s put on a couple pounds, too, though and _oh_ , in another time and place Steve would be _thrilled_ to point that out. Mr. Shirtless and Muscles with a little chub.

Steve even opens his mouth but then shuts it again.

Another time and place. Except when and where that is Steve has no idea; the only way he could see Billy in any universe letting himself go is because something bad had happened. Besides, Steve is supposed to be better. That’s not him anymore. He helps people, he gets along with kids and his best friends are a boy who just started his freshman year and a rockstar of a woman he met during one of the worst summers of his life.

“Whatever,” Billy says to Steve’s apology. He looks tense. But, then again, when _didn't_ he?

The inside of the store is freezing, the AC still cranked up high, and the guy behind the counter doesn’t ask what he can do for them or if they’re looking for anything specific, just lifts his chin from the busted paperback he was reading and keeps an eye on them. Steve notices how those eyes spend more time focused on Billy than on himself which is silly, more so because Steve is clearly the one actively looking for something while Billy seems to be content just absently pacing in circles on the dirty and scuffed tile floor in the direct center of the store, his boots squeaking as he moved.

This was weird. This was _very_ weird and Steve considers that while standing in front of the glass doors holding shelves upon shelves of bottles and cans, all bright colors and plastic and metal and labels with exclamation points and fancy, in-your-face fonts. He wouldn’t say that they were hanging out. That implied that either of them were currently enjoying spending time in each other’s company. But if not that, then what was this? Just two people who hated each other and didn’t want to be alone for a little while on a Saturday night. Better than a stranger, Steve supposes, but this Billy—this one right here, the one who couldn’t breathe right and who’s hands shook all the time—might as well have been one.

He certainly _talked_ like Billy. But everything else? Different.

“How long does it take to choose a _fucking_ soda,” someone says. A figure suddenly comes up on Steve’s right, reaches in front of him to yank open one of the doors, and he watches as Billy chooses a six-pack of something orange and then shoves it into Steve’s chest. He lets go without warning and Steve has less than a second to catch them, cradling the cans in his arms like a baby because otherwise they would have exploded the moment they hit the floor. “There.”

So maybe not _that_ different after all.

“That’s it?” Counter Guy asks when Steve puts the drinks down. He smells like smoke and sweat. The book he’s reading doesn’t have a cover and the pages are yellow. They match his teeth.

“I hope so,” Billy murmurs, just loud enough like he _wanted_ Steve to hear. He’s gotten talkative suddenly but he’s also seemingly gotten more and more cranky as the minutes ticked by. It’s possible there’s a correlation.

Steve goes through the transaction as hastily as possible and mishandles his change in the process, kicks a whole quarter and loses it to the black hole that a lot of floors appear to turn into when you drop something you intend on finding again. _Thunk_. Billy bangs down a quarter on the counter. It can’t be the same one so it must have been fished out from his jacket.

“Thanks,” Steve says. Billy grunts.

& & & &

“Dude,” Steve says once they’re outside. The warmth is almost welcome after being stuck in that icebox for even that short of an amount of time but Billy has sweat on his forehead, barely concealed by the curls of his hair. “You alright?” That’s the right thing to do. The person you’re asking might not like it but it’s what you do. Also, if this guy was going to explode like a dropped soda can, Steve would really appreciate knowing in advance so he could prepare himself for it. He’s not a huge fan of surprises. (That wasn’t exactly new but certain circumstances had aggravated it.)

Billy is pacing again except his boots aren’t squeaking anymore—they’re crunching—and he’s got more space to walk. He’s got fists clenched and he’s breathing hard through his nose and _here we go_ , Steve thinks. _I’m gonna get my ass kicked_. But then: Billy stops. He stops and he bends forward, presses his palms flat against his thighs and starts breathing through his mouth instead. His eyes are closed.

Steve’s head is buzzing right along with the lights. This was too much.

“It was too cold in there,” Billy says that like it should mean something to Steve. A bunch of excitable teenagers had explained things to him and to Robin once stuff had calmed down as much as they could possibly calm down in this town but there was a lot that Steve didn’t retain and he had his severe concussion to blame for that. He’d been too miserable at the time to admit it to anyone so he just pretended he’d understood it all. Steve figures he’ll give it two more days and then ask Robin to go over it one more time because at least she’d get it. She was there. She’d know it wasn’t because he was a dingus as she liked to call him. Not this time.

Steve is pretty sure that Billy admitting that to him was a Big Deal. He didn’t tell Steve to _fuck off_ or say _whatever_ or punch him. He just said: _this is what’s screwing me up right now_.

“Okay,” Steve says. Billy straightens his back and flabbergasts Steve by starting to laugh. “Uh.” Because what else could you say, really?

“I’m really messed up, Harrington.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies before he can stop himself. “I’ve known that for awhile.” The laughter ceases and _oh boy_ but then it starts once more and there’s a tickle in Steve’s throat because now he kind of wants to cackle right along with him. He does, eventually, and then it’s just two people who mostly hate each other laughing in a gas station parking lot while some old guy reads a book and moths throw themselves against blinding bright lights. “Hey,” Steve says once it finally dies down, “You wanna come back to my place?”

“What?” Confused. Incredulous.

“It’s just me and Robin. We’re just chilling.”

“Robin.” He doesn’t know her. Of course he doesn’t. When would they have met? Steve’s certainly told her about him but words and an actual face-to-face are two completely separate things.

“My friend. We— She’s cool.”

“Uh-huh. You want me to… chill. With you and your cool friend.” Billy says it with the tone of someone making fun of Steve. _Well not anymore I don’t_ , Steve won’t say.

“You want me to take you home then?” Steve offers for the second time that night and there’s _something_ that flashes momentarily over Billy’s face but then it’s gone and all he says is:

“Not really.”

“I could just leave you here,” Steve says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out as biting as it does. He lets out a slow exhale, holds out his hands towards Billy. “We’re all messed up, you know. And I know we probably won’t be friends but…” He can’t believe he’s doing this. He can’t quite believe he’s done _most_ of what he’s done in the past hour or so. “Maybe for a little bit you can sit and have a couple sodas with some other messed up people. Right?” He fishes the keys out of his jeans. “It’s not gonna kill you.”

“You don’t know that,” Billy volleys back but it seems like it was said on pure force-of-habit than anything else. Steve thinks about the dog metaphor he’d silently made earlier. This is like talking that same battered, nervous stray into coming inside. He resists the urge to crouch slightly and motion for Billy to come closer. “I’ve—” But Billy leaves the sentence hanging.

“You what?”

"Nevermind."

“Bill—”

“I said forget it.” Steve doesn’t point out that he said no such thing. That would probably make things worse.

“You really have anything better to do?” Steve asks and Billy seems to genuinely think it over. He’s about to reassure him that nobody has to know if that’s what the issue was, some sort of reputation Billy still needed to save, to cling on to, and spending time with Steve and whatever weird friend he’s made could ruin that but then Billy lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

“Fine. Couple hours, though. That’s it.”

“Sure. Couple hours,” Steve says, nods, and Billy gets into the car without another word, sits in the seat, hands in his lap. Waiting. “Ah. Oh. Yup.” Behind the wheel, cans in the back, key in the ignition. And off they go.

& & & &

It is exactly 1:58AM on a Saturday morning when Steve brings Billy Hargrove and a six-pack of lukewarm soda home with him.

Robin gives them both quizzical looks when they arrive, lets it stay longer on Steve. She doesn’t get it until she does.

“Mi casa es su casa,” she says to Billy even though this isn’t her house, hands him a can with the top already popped, the bubbles fizzing. She knocks her own against his. “Welcome to Trauma Club.”

Somehow, Billy doesn’t leave after that.

Steve chalks it up to exhaustion because he’s not sure why else he’d bother to stay.

So. Yeah. Billy stays. He stays and he doesn’t talk much but that’s fine and he drinks four of the six sodas which is _less_ fine but it happens and no one’s going to fight it.

He wasn’t looking for him but he found him or maybe Billy found Steve but it didn’t matter. He was here.

This was just how things were now: one unexpected, bananas thing after the other. Aliens. Monsters. Billy Hargrove napping in his car and sitting on his couch next to Robin, both of them with their feet kicked up on the coffee table as they don't exactly talk to each other but they don't argue either, which is better than Steve had predicted when he'd thought about the possibility of these two meeting each other.

So... sure. Why not.

Why the heck not.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @mistrmiracle. Title from “This Must Be The Place” by Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell.


End file.
